


The Flip Side of Death

by Letterblade



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And a Keith Cameo, Child Death, Gen, Hunk (Voltron) Whump, Hunk (Voltron) is Badass, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character Death(s), The Arena, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 15:42:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18705325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/pseuds/Letterblade
Summary: The arena’s packed.Commander Ozen, the arena master himself, stands tall between the four towers, armor glinting dark under the light pounding down on them both. The two furred ridges on his skull are bristling with excitement, and there’s a smug, vicious light in his eyes. He flexes his claws, plants his long legs firm.Hunk steps through the opposite door, small in the vast steel mouth of the blood-sands, and the crowd screams with death in its teeth.





	The Flip Side of Death

**Author's Note:**

> This was my very first zine fic! Written for _If You Need Me_ , to benefit the [A21 Campaign](https://www.a21.org/). Extras just went on sale [here](https://vldwhumpzine.tumblr.com/post/184636552744/extras-sales-now-open-for-if-you-need-me-a-vld). Thanks to mllelaurel as always for beta, and for the mods for pulling together this lovely zine!
> 
> Because Hunk deserves whump too: it's how we show our love.

The arena’s packed.

Commander Ozen, the arena master himself, stands tall between the four towers, armor glinting dark under the light pounding down on them both. The two furred ridges on his skull are bristling with excitement, and there’s a smug, vicious light in his eyes. He flexes his claws, plants his long legs firm.

Hunk steps through the opposite door, small in the vast steel mouth of the blood-sands, and the crowd screams with death in its teeth. The noise hits him like a heavy wave, and he keeps walking, jaw set. No weapons for either of them, sure, but Ozen has his claws and armor, and Hunk’s in that prison body-sock that protects him from nothing but skinned knees. Adrenaline’s pushing him through the bone-weariness, but he can’t ignore the pain in his back, raw skin and splitting welts under the suit, or the spikes of fire still jolting his nerves from time to time.

Doesn’t matter.

As he walks between the towers, Hunk pauses, teeth bared, and rams his heel into the ground like a challenge. Three times. It vibrates down the beam just under the sand, rings off the hollow insides of the towers in a scream of metal.

He’s just gotta see this fight through, he tells himself. The boiling fear in his belly has reduced to thick rage, and he’s got every CQC drill Shiro or Keith bullied him through under his skin, and after that runs out, he’ll just have to close his eyes and endure.

“Palen-bo,” he growls, too low to carry.

 

* * *

 

It had been a stupid way to get captured, all things considered. The problem with the snake pit of petty warlords that’s poured out of the remnants of the empire like worms out of Oogie Boogie is that nobody has good intel on most of them and they all have different random tricks. Like this asshole, who’s sitting on a lucrative argonzite mine, thinks that keeping a dirtside slave arena is a fine use of his time and resources, and has a giant laser cannon that can knock out Yellow in one hit. Also what they’d thought was his main base turned out to be a decoy station.

So _that_ had sucked.

Ozen is far bigger fish than Voltron had bargained for on a just-lions mission, ranging far from the Atlas to cover more territory. Keith had maybe also come in screaming hot on this one, given the arena, in Shiro’s honor. Now Keith’s doing the sensible thing and pulling back to plan a rescue mission. At least Hunk _hopes_ he is. He’d blacked out when that laser hit Yellow. And woken up handcuffed on a purple steel floor.

“The same species as Champion.” Ozen, Hunk’s discovering, seems to be fond of posturing. And pacing circles around his captive. And poking. Hunk’s in his undersuit, hands locked painfully tight behind his back, no armor to protect him from those clawed hands digging deep into the meat of his shoulder. “Though the feel of your flesh is different.”

“Yeah, I’m fatter,” Hunk mutters. “Galra come in fat too, deal with it.”

“I wonder if you’ll feel the same when I fuck you.”

It’s so casual, so matter-of-fact, that it takes a moment to register. Then Hunk’s brain screeches to a halt.

“You,” he chokes. His mind is whiting out, and he’s worried for a moment he’s going to throw up on them right there, but instead what bursts out is, “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” _Shiro_ —did this asshole seriously just imply he’d—does that mean he’s gonna— “Don’t you have hobbies? Didn’t your palen-bo master teach you better? Take up knitting or something! Why are you _like_ thisgghr—” His voice garbles around Ozen’s fingers, shoved inside to run over his tongue in a way that makes his skin try to rip itself off and launch into orbit. He bites, hard, and his teeth have regrets. Damn armor.

“Mouthier,” Ozen says, sounding intrigued. “And speaking words you have no right to.” He pulls out his hand and bitchslaps him—he barely puts force into it, and it still sends him reeling. “Take him down and process him. Make sure he doesn’t know the way.”

 

* * *

 

By the time they’re done frogmarching him around corners with a blackout helmet jammed on his head, Hunk’s so worked up that his knees give out the moment they let go. He can’t stop imagining every _possible_ bad thing that “process him” could mean. And he’s painfully aware that there’s probably stuff he doesn’t even _know_ enough to imagine. He’d probably start screaming at just about anything when they pull the helmet off, but it’s a purple-lit medical bay, so that might be an extra scream or two. It’s just the two guards, and then one of them pulls out a knife and grabs a handful of Hunk’s undersuit, and Hunk’s soul leaves his body.

The next while is a blur. He’s probably babbling. The panic’s fading into dizzy exhaustion, and they still haven’t whipped it out, and it’s some sort of exam—poking, prodding, blood and skin taken with a little punch to his arm that doesn’t stop hurting. Scanners. After checking his teeth, the bored-looking men strap on a muzzle, and Hunk lies there as they do something with electrodes and his leg muscles, silent and shaking like a leaf, irrationally annoyed by how his chin blobs out from under the straps.

 

* * *

 

Hunk’s zipped into prison togs, fresh and odorless from the sterilizer, and wonders whether the last guy who wore them is still alive. Then he’s dumped into a large, dank room. At least they took the muzzle off?

A few dozen assorted sets of eyes stare balefully back at him.

“Uh,” he says. His voice comes out thin, quavering. It takes him two tries to stand, legs watery from all the panicking. “Yeah, hi, uh, I’m Hunk, I’m your new bunkmate I guess, okay, do any of you know why they put crop tops on us? It’s a separate piece, like it goes over the zipper, it serves absolutely no conceivable purpose, it probably gets tangled in the wash. It’s always bugged me, like…crop tops. Why.”

Silence.

“Wow, this is a worse audience than that nursing home.”

Silence.

“I’m gonna go sit over here in this patch of floor nobody else seems to care about. Any takers for this patch of floor? Okay. Got it.”

“Wait,” comes a low, vaguely feminine voice. “Come over here. Let me look at you.”

“Uh…” Hunk makes his feet move. There are stains on the floor he doesn’t want to think about. Whoever called him over is lean, wiry, sitting on the floor. Nyma’s species, he realizes with a pang, but mottled brown instead of yellow peach-fuzz, solid muscle, painted with scars. And she ends at her pelvis. She’s got her arms wrapped snugly around a pair of prosthetics, well-worn and janky, all bare servos and power. “Hey. I’m Hunk.”

“You said that already.” Her dark eyes narrow.

“Right. I did. Yeah. Kinda panicking right now, sorry.”

“You’re Champion’s species.”

“God, why does everyone—okay, no, I do know him but I swear not all humans know each other—look, I’m a Paladin of Voltron. I’m—the Yellow Lion—they’re gonna be coming for me. They’re gonna get us out of here.”

Her mouth twists, flat, and a muscle in her jaw jumps. “ _Champion_ owes me a perfectly good pair of legs.” A crack of a smile, one-sided, awful. “I hope we get fielded. I look forward to ripping yours off in return. A Paladin of Voltron, you say?”

Hands grab Hunk’s arms. Again. He yelps, caught entirely off guard, trying to stammer around some kind of answer— _Shiro_ ripped people’s _legs_ off?—and her hand twitches, and her unattached prosthetic foot lashes out to nail Hunk in the gut.

“Teach him a lesson, boys.”

 

* * *

 

The lesson is, well, about what you would expect. Very palen-bo. Also very grade school. Hunk balls up around his churning gut and tries to hide his head and hands and hopes they go away.

Eventually they do, though not before a kick to his roiling stomach sends him Hunking all over his crop top. The consequences of that, he realizes as he huddles alone on his patch of floor, are a lot worse when you’re in a shitty prison that doesn’t have napkins.

He just sort of exists, wretchedly, for a period, listing in the smell of his own vomit as the ringing in his ears fades and the stomach-sickness eases and his blood goes tacky. And he mashes his forehead softly against the wall. He should be able to _help_ them, he should be able to give them—hope, or something, at least—he hasn’t felt this stupidly useless since pulling out of the fringes of that prison camp with the tiny figures of his parents in his binoculars, and it’s making his eyes prick. Or maybe that’s how much everything hurts, or how freaking terrified he is.

Shiro went through this, he tells himself. For a _year_. And stood right back up to lead Voltron. He can make it a day or two until they track him down, yeah?

Yellow. Can he reach Yellow, like he had from that cell?

He bunches against the wall and closes his wet eyes and tries. And tries. Darkness. Exhaustion. Dread. Not a spark of gold. Maybe Yellow’s still healing up from the fuck-off big laser? Maybe he just needs a little time? That’s—well, not okay at all, damn it, but it has to be—

“Mister Hunk?” comes a small, lilting voice. “Is your head hurt? Are you gonna die?”

 

* * *

 

There’s a goddamn _kid_ here.

Her name is Muira, and she’s up to about Hunk’s elbow, all elbows herself, and she has little blue hair-tendrils and faint scales and a stone on a knotted string for a necklace. He doesn’t know what species she is, but she has glimmering lights in her big wet eyes, and has seen somebody die in their sleep from a concussion, and doesn’t want it to happen again because the body smelled.

She’s eight, and she’ll be all grown up when she’s twelve, and she’s been here a month. “Tysha doesn’t bother with me because I’m too little and the big purple guys dun’ either and they only put me out once in this big scramble thing where we were all fightin’ each other and I grabbed something ’n hid.” A frown. “They don’t feed me much though. ‘Nyway I’m sorry they bother with you.”

Muira doesn’t have napkins either, but she shows Hunk how to unhook his crop top and shake off the drying crust and turn it inside out in exchange for telling her whether he’s really a Paladin.

The only price tag on the next story, and the next, is the lights in her eyes starting to dance.

 

* * *

 

Before they drag him away again, Muira has hope in her smile, and some of the others—guilty under Tysha’s glare—are starting to look thoughtful.

She’s given him her little stone necklace for good luck, despite his protests. She’d insisted. He’ll give it back when Voltron gets here, he promises, and get her home or anywhere else she wants to go, and there’s _still_ nothing from Yellow, but they’re looking for him, right? It’ll be okay.

He’s only shaking a little when they grab him.

By the time they hose him down and shove him towards the big door and the roaring crowd, he’s _way_ beyond shaking. His hands are clammy, his voice seized in his throat. This shouldn’t be—there’s worse they can do—he’s learned to deal with crowds by now, right?

Something echoes over the loudspeakers as Hunk stumbles out onto packed sand amongst four great towers that rise like claws. The tailing end of an announcement. “…ladin of Voltron! Finally fighting on the right side!”

The stands are packed. The stands are laughing. Jeering. Hollering for his slow and bloody death.

Panic rises in Hunk’s throat. His body’s lead, his blood’s ice. _It’s not like that_ , he wants to say, but his voice won’t sound and they can’t hear him anyway and there’s purple face after purple face in the stands, ragged and raging.

On the opposite side of the arena, they shove Muira through the doors.

 

* * *

 

She has a mace dragging in the sand beside her and the tendrils on her head are flat with distress.

Her little black-suited feet pat in the sand as she runs, heaving the mace up, and somewhere, over the roar of hatred, Hunk can hear her voice. “I’m sorry!”

He catches the blow on a forearm without thinking, and it barely hurts. Combat reflexes. Too many years fighting. His gut wrenches to feel his body move like that.

“I’m sorry!” she yelps again. “They said—they said I have to fight you—o-or they’ll kill me— _please_ , I’m sorry—”

“Jesus,” he croaks, and backpedals. The crowd boos, shouts for blood. “Muira—”

She rushes him again, and even Hunk can read where that blow’s landing, and he squirms aside, and she skids out with a sob.

 _She’s_ the one in danger here, he realizes, stupidly slow. She’s in danger, and the only way he can help is to—to—

He lunges, catches her in a bear hug, and she yelps and kicks and clutches his shoulder like a lifeline. “I’m gonna—play fight you,” he mumbles in her ear. “Like I do my friends in training. Okay? I’m not gonna hurt you.”

She keens in relief. And struggles quite credibly, mace flailing around to catch him in the hip, thigh. She’s barely using any force; it mostly just bounces off his squish, and it’s so ridiculous that for a moment, strange and light through a couple thousand war-torn Galra screaming like they want to crucify him, he grins.

 

* * *

 

Their little show ends with Muira disarmed, face-down in the sand, wailing overwrought for mercy as Hunk magnanimously accepts her surrender. Not that this audience takes _that_ well, but at least there aren’t fart jokes?

Then Ozen steps out onto the sand. With a posse.

Hunk’s blood runs cold as he paces towards them. Muira whimpers and scrabbles to her feet.

“You refuse to kill your opponent?” Ozen squares up in front of him with a smile that’s far too dangerous. “After you’ve murdered so many of us?”

Hunk digs one heel into the sand, bracing himself. This—well, there are ways this could go, really horrible ways he doesn’t want to think about, but—yeah, nope, he’s so not ready. He’s not ready for _shit_. “Why is that even a goddamn question.”

Ozen smiles, cold and harsh. Almost—fond. “Stubborn like Champion before we broke him. Maybe you’ll kill just as gloriously once we do.”

Hunk gently inches Muira behind him, hoping that the staring match will distract Ozen. “You _really_ need better hobbies. I am seriously starting to feel like the kid who’s never going to live up to his overachieving big brother because nobody around him realizes that they’re, like, different people, only in the stupidest way—”

“Should we bring him to your chambers, Sir?” one of the guards asks, profoundly bored.

“I have matters to attend to. Unfortunately. No, take him back below.”

Hands on his elbows, dragging him forward. Click of a cuff around one wrist.

“And,” Ozen says, and steps forward, and Hunk braces himself for—for something—no, he steps past, and Hunk turns, too slow, free arm coming up—

A purple blade of light blooms between Ozen’s hand and Muira’s throat.

“Victory or death.”

She makes some horrible gurgling noise and stumbles, sagging forward. Her eyes are huge. The little sparkles are fading. The sword vanishes, and she topples, and somebody else is screaming, and she falls past Hunk’s fingertips into the sand.

Her blood is cornflower blue.

Her blood is cornflower blue and something’s crunching under Hunk’s knuckles.

His other wrist catches and pulls. Hands scrabble at him. Somebody’s still screaming, and something crunches, and crunches again.

“Get him off the commander—”

“I’m trying!”

Something catches his foot. He lurches. The ground hits him hard.

Muira. He’d tripped over Muira. Purple smears on his knuckles. Her eyes are huge, without light. Weight lands on him, and his shoulder’s pulled back so hard he feels something crack, and cold metal seals around both his wrists and he roars with frustration, spitting rage.

“Hah,” comes Ozen’s voice from somewhere far above. “I knew you could fight better than that.” A boot to his face. “And I still need to go.” Boots pulling back, circling. “Razor whip him until he loses consciousness, then heal him enough to fight. And send me the video feed. It’ll be useful leverage against Voltron.”

 

* * *

 

The razor whips are something electric that make his whole body seize and burn even as blood runs down his back like water. There are two men working like a goddamn machine, and he’s arms are cuffed so high that his toes are scrabbling on the floor, and he’s pretty sure he passes out because he can’t stop screaming long enough to breathe.

The next thing that’s clear is the floor of the holding pen, trampled mud and blood and fluids, and he’s curled on his side with his prison suit zipped over his half-healed back and fire still running down his nerves, and his eyes are wide and leaking slowly, and he’s in too much pain to move, or think, or exist, except he can’t stop the last thing. He can’t stop existing, and somebody’s tossed Muira’s cold little blanket near him, and he feels smaller than he ever has in his life.

 

* * *

 

The holding pen is right under the arena.

For some reason, he keeps thinking about that as he lies there. The four cornerstones of the pen—the roots of the pillars in the arena. He’s strangely certain.

He isn’t entirely sure if he’s having an out of body experience. He’s read about them? The tech here looks standard Galra. He needs to know more about the layout. He needs two conductors with different enough resistance, a guard’s helmet, a sentry head for later, he’d kill for a potato—okay, no, that might be literal, and it isn’t even for eating because he’s not hungry. He hasn’t been hungry since this started. That’s…probably bad.

Two prosthetic feet click into view.

“Settling in yet?” Tysha drawls.

Hunk twitches and grunts.

“The razor whips are nothing next to the wall, and everybody dies. Learn that and stop being an annoyance.”

“So you’re annoyed by this,” Hunk mumbles. Her legs are beautiful, raw mechanics. Probably have everything he needs that isn’t Galra tech. “Other people suffering still hurts you, huh?”

One leg kicks out, and he watches the servos whirr with floaty fascination before he’s rolled onto his back and the pain shorts his brain out. “You must actually be a Paladin. They wouldn’t have hated anybody else that much.”

“I am.” Hunk licks his parched lips, struggles to breathe around the mass of pain on his back. “And Shiro—Champion—he’s the captain of our capital ship. He’s fighting for people’s freedom now. Harder than he ever fought in the arena. You got a beef with him, leave with me now, take it up with him.”

Her metal heel presses down on his solar plexus, threatening, and he wheezes. “Those words get us nailed to the wall and flayed alive, fat Paladin.”

His blood chills. That could be her. Him. Everyone in this room. But he can’t just lie here and wait for Voltron, wait for Ozen to come down and rip his suit off. If they’re not here already—he has to do something—he has to step up—he _has_ to—

He swallows, hard. “How much are we monitored?”

 

* * *

 

When he confirms the pens don’t have audio monitors, he tells Tysha everything. When he’s got her _actually_ convinced that he’s an engineer with years of experience in dismantling Galra security, the rest of the dead-eyed room comes together like filings to a magnet. Complete with long experience in where to sit so that nobody can read their lips and nobody knows they’re talking.

At least there are folks he can train in the finickier bits of hacking sentries. Because he won’t be there with them, and that’s the shittiest part, but no matter how much he turns it over, Hunk isn’t sure anything less will work. He needs a distraction. He needs the biggest damn distraction this entire base has to offer. And the pillars will resonate down to the pen. A starting signal for the escape.

All he needs is for Ozen to find him too interesting to kill _quickly_.

The next time the bored-looking guard shows up to huck pouches of protein powder at them, Hunk gets up in his grill. “Hey. You. Tell your boss the Yellow Paladin wants to talk to him. Or his new Champion. Whichever. Assuming he’s going to come down here and face me like a true Galra instead of hiding his weakness behind all this.”

The guard squawks behind his faceplate, ears going back. “Sacred flaaame, he would lose his shit if he heard you say that.”

“You think he’s kind of a wuss too, huh?”

“I like living. But look, he’s gonna come down here in a few vargas anyway. He kind of has a thing about you.” His mouth twists. “You poor bastard.”

“Bring it,” Hunk growls. “Vrepit fucking sa.”

 

* * *

 

The look on Ozen’s face when Hunk challenges him to a duel in ancient high Galra tradition is actually pretty priceless.

“And okay,” Hunk goes on, “sure, victory or death, but death’s too good for a coward like you. If I win, I’m leaving you alive, and you’re releasing every slave in this arena. With an evac shuttle too. Safe passage. No weaseling out.”

Ozen hisses, long and slow, and his claws catch Hunk by the jaw, sinking into his flesh, possessive. “I see you’re done blubbering.” His smile is furious. “Good. I’ll humor your offer, Paladin. And when I win, I’ll spare your life, since you seem to consider that a kindness. You’ll live for me to take you in the arena sand for all to see.”

Dread slides home like a knife in Hunk’s side, and he digs his fingernails into his palm so hard his arm trembles. “You don’t even print a parental advisory on your tickets, do you.” But he’ll live. Tysha and the others can contact Voltron, they’ll come, he’ll live. That’s the important part. “Jesus fucking Christ, I should’ve guessed you’d do something that pointless. It’s a deal.”

 

* * *

 

Hunk hides his last jerry-rigged useful inside the calf of Tysha’s prosthetic and paces the pen slowly, stretching like Lance had taught him before training. He chokes down protein powder until his legs don’t feel like jelly. Somebody cleans out the raw scabs on his back.

Goals. He needs to stay focused. Their escape. Not how this is probably gonna end for him. He squeezes the stone necklace hidden under his suit every time he quavers.

By the time they hose him down and shove him towards the big door and the roaring crowd, he’s dead calm and wondering what Ozen’s throat would feel like under his hands.

 

* * *

 

Hunk sags against one of the arena pillars.

He never did get that stranglehold. A nut shot, at least, for pure vindication. More than a few elbows and body slams. He’d tried to keep it close, keep Ozen’s claws away from him, but Galra strength is goddamn obnoxious, and there’s a mass of pain in his side that feels a little too wet and cold for his comfort.

His ankle’s screaming after that last fall. Sprained? He scrabbles against the pillar, fighting his own weight, heaving for breath. The ground hits his knees. His ears must be ringing a little—there are strange, distorted screams in the crowd. Fear stings at his eyes as Ozen paces closer, face lit in a sneer.

“Not bad,” he bites out with a terrible grin. There’s blood dripping from his nose, and he’s favoring his left side after a heavy slam to his ribs, but he’s standing and Hunk isn’t. “Not bad at all. But I think I’ll claim my stakes while you’re still conscious.”

Hunk feels his hand shake against metal. This is—this is happening—it’s—then it’s going to be over and they’re going to be free—god, he hopes Voltron isn’t watching.

He spits into the sand. “Sure. I hope you chafe your dick.”

Three paces closer. Four. Hunk scoots free of the pillar, scrabbles backwards in spite of himself, and Ozen looks almost disappointed. “Honor your stakes, little—”

White steel slams into the side of Ozen’s face.

There’s a noise from the crowd like crashing waves, and louder things Hunk can’t make sense of, and a gray-and-white Garrison flightsuit pounding across the sand, and—and _Shiro_.

Shiro’s here.

There’s rage on his face like Hunk’s never seen.

He closes the distance like thunder, teeth bared, and his arm spins in air, smashes another heavy blow, reels back and pulls up him with it in a great leap. He strikes down, sea-hawk bright. The stands are an earthquake, and Hunk’s ears ring— _Champion! Champion! Champion!_

“ _You_ ,” Ozen croaks, and his bloody face splits in a grin, but his voice is brittle. Shiro’s thrown, turns it into a roundhouse kick, bulls around with brutal speed. Hunk’s seen him fight, sure, but not like _this_ —leg-ripping murder in his eyes. Ozen is too busy defending himself to talk, thank fuck, he’s obnoxious when he talks—

They’ve already won, he realizes. There’s no way they’ll focus on the breakout with Shiro, here, on the warpath—they’ll have their hotwired shuttle out of the _system_ before anyone knows. And Voltron can’t be far behind. Can it?

Ozen’s energy sword blooms, lashing for Shiro’s vulnerable right side as his arm reels out again, and fear hits Hunk like ice water. He lunges. Punches Ozen’s arm up. The blow skims away from Shiro’s shoulder implant, and he makes one startled grunt, barely tracking Hunk’s presence.

The wound in Hunk’s side screams, makes his legs tremble, and there’s a lot of blood in the sand, and Shiro is terrifying and glorious, and this needs to end. The two of them are trading blows, a blur. Sword slicing Shiro’s hair.

Hunk not going to let him get hurt either. He growls, feels almost like Yellow’s armor is wrapped around his shoulders, and bulls low, slamming into Ozen’s thighs. One horrible twinge in his ankle before he comes off it. Claws rake Hunk’s arm as they go down, a fierce kick as Ozen struggles. Hunk’s ears are ringing as he grapples, fumbling through with desperate strength—just keep him down, keep his sword out of play—he gets an armlock on Ozen’s right, squeezes with everything he’s got—

Bone snaps.

Ozen’s howl cuts through the screaming in the arena.

Shiro’s weight lands on them both, knocking the wind out of Hunk. There’s a noise like a cleaver hitting a melon, and Ozen’s limbs spasm.

Purple blood spatters somewhere near Hunk’s face.

Shiro’s drilling into Ozen’s face with the metal arm. Two blows. Three. Thicker things than blood are flying, and Hunk isn’t sure whether to retch or scream in triumph. Four. Five. Ozen isn’t moving anymore, and Hunk flounders under them both, and Shiro punches again, again.

 _Victory!_ The crowd’s roaring. _Victory! Victory!_ The flip side of death.

The punches stop. Ragged breathing. Shiro rolls off, maybe, and Hunk struggles for air.

“Shiro?”

Hunk’s voice comes out small, cracked. Whatever’s left of Ozen’s skull is hot and wet, and he’s kind of soaked, and the crowd is screaming chaos very far away. Hunk digs his heels into the sand and heaves, squirming sideways, sliding the slab of dead meat off him.

Shiro’s on hand and knees, panting like he’s just run a marathon, only it doesn’t slow down now that he’s still. It’s fast and a little shallow, and the whole front of his uniform is spattered purple blood, and his eyes are wild and huge.

“Hey…Shiro?” Too much noise. There’s another crack and boom somewhere below. “Shiro…” Hunk scrabbles around to his knees, pitifully slow. He feels like he weighs a million pounds, and his leg’s too cold and his side’s too hot, and he wonders vaguely how you know if you’re going to pass out from blood loss, or bleed out and die, or, or. “Can you hear me?”

Shiro’s eyes track over scarily slow, and then the floating hand scrabbles free of Ozen’s head and reaches for Hunk. “You’re alive,” he whispers. “Oh god. I was supposed to…you should never have…what did he _do_?”

“H-hey,” Hunk croaks, and catches his hand, hot blood and brains and all, and presses it against his own cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay. He didn’t…he just beat me up some. Promise. Shiro…Shiro, listen, you got here in time.”

Shiro makes a choked little noise, and his eyes pull into focus, just a little.

And then he grabs for Hunk with his other arm and _clings_. Clings and dry-sobs.

They’re still like that when a pack of sentries starts pelting across the sand, stupidly late and bleeping, and Hunk looks up and legitimately wonders if they’re both going to die by freaking _sentries_ after all this, because he isn’t sure he can move.

Then the shining bolt of a sniper bayard drops the lead in his tracks, and Hunk closes his eyes with a groan of relief.

 

* * *

 

Their one remaining pod is slumped on its side like a coffin, and through the ear-ringing blur of everyone fussing the Atlas’ medbay, that’s the thing Hunk keeps staring at. He needs to go into that and he doesn’t want to, not yet, it’s too small and he’s breathing funny. Coran is helping him with the bloody remnants of his prison togs, fabric ripping with the Altean strength he rarely brings to bear, and then Lance is trying to help him into the regeneration pajamas that help with the pod, and then somebody’s fingers brush the necklace.

“Hey, man, what’s that?”

“That’s—no, that’s—” Hunk grabs for it with numb fingers, batting Lance’s hand aside. “Don’t—” His voice cracks. “Don’t touch—”

“Whoa—it’s okay, I won’t, I promise.” Lance’s face, wide-eyed, goes smudgy.

Hunk curls his hand around the pendant and fumbles a little wildly for the pod. The stupid pajamas are bunched around his waist and he’s half-naked and bloody, and everybody looks scared and very far away, and his chest is heaving like he’s about to be sick. Or cry. He isn’t sure which one is worse. Keith lifts a hand, hesitant, stricken, and damn it, Keith had thought he was brave and instead he’s—crying. His voice cracks on a huge gulping sob, and it’s a freaking waterfall, he can’t stop it.

He crumples.

One of the hands that catches him is smooth and cool, and—Shiro, thank god, it’s Shiro, and Hunk buries his face in his chest so nobody can see, and doesn’t let go of the necklace, and cries, and cries.

Shiro’s floating hand settles feather-gentle on the back of his head like he could shield out the entire world.

 

* * *

 

Hunk’s gone in the pod, cried out and half-conscious.

Hunk’s woken hours later, in the buzz of early ship’s-morning, and the whole mob had been there when the lid slid aside, fussing, asking questions, and it was just—it was _stupid_ , they’re his friends, but it was too much, and he’d just grabbed one of those thin shock blankets and said he needed space and _ran_ —

He hadn’t even planned to come here, but his pajama-sock feet had a mind of their own.

Yellow’s still regenerating, flopped on his side with all his paws in a pile, and Hunk’s bundled in his foil blanket like a burrito against one toe. He keeps thinking that at some point, he’ll need to tell everyone he’s okay—they must be worried. At some point, he’ll need to peel out of the pajamas and see if there are any scars—deep claw marks down his side, tracery on his back, he doesn’t want to know. But mostly, now, he’s wondering when he’ll stop shaking.

At least the Atlas’ lion bays are less of a hike than the old zipline tubes. Also no ziplines. A bonus.

The whole shaking thing is—different than he thought it would be. He isn’t trapped in flashbacks or anything, except for the look in Muira’s eyes when Ozen raised his sword, but he isn’t _seeing_ it, he just can’t stop thinking about it, and he can’t get warm. He feels like he’s a little sideways from where he’s actually sitting, and it’s kind of hard to move, and he’d think he was sick, except he just came out of a pod, so he can’t be sick, right?

Eventually the door hisses open.

Which he—should’ve expected, even if he’s scared that it’ll be the whole crowd again—or worse, his parents—because he doesn’t know how to face them or what to say to them and just the thought makes his spine freeze. Which is really fucking stupid. Still. He should want to be with his friends, right? But—

—but it’s just Shiro. The circle at his shoulder glows softly in the dim light.

“I, uh…” He ventures closers. His hair is damp, like he’s just scrubbed all his skin off, and he looks tired and more raw than Hunk’s ever seen him. He’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, and his uniform jacket like a lopsided cape, and black lion slippers.

He’s holding two guava jarritos.

“I can leave if you need me to,” Shiro says. “I get wanting to be alone. But Lance said you really like these, and…”

“H-how did you know I was here?” Hunk pushes himself up a little. He didn’t expect his voice to hitch. Damn it.

“Atlas told me.”

“Oh.” Hunk squeezes his eyes shut. “Well. That’s our lives. Talkin’ to ships.” He hasn’t told Shiro to go away yet, and he doesn’t actually want to, maybe? Even though him being here is…a lot.

“Mm.” Shiro sits cross-legged a careful distance away and turns the bottles around in his hand. “I feel like I should have something useful to say, but I…I don’t even know where to start. Except that I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened, I should have gotten there sooner—”

“Damn it, Shiro,” Hunk mumbles. “It’s not your fault. And if anyone, maybe even you, came in here and said they were going to make it all better, I’d tell them they were full of shit. I can’t—it’s not—” He blinks hard, shakes his head a little. “Do you ever…do you ever feel like you can’t get warm and you’re wearing your body inside out, or am I sick or something?”

“Oh—yes, I get that a lot. I think it’s dissociation.”

Hunk feels a strange, nebulous coil of relief. Okay. He’s not sick. This is a normal thing that happens. He scrunches in his foil packet and eyes the jarritos dubiously. “Do you…do you ever panic when people are nice to you and not know why?”

Shiro squeezes his eyes shut. “All the time,” he breathes. “Well, I…know why. More or less. But—damn it.” He takes one deep, shaky breath. “Sorry.”

“No apologizing,” Hunk mutters, eyes narrow. “Why are you apologizing.”

Shiro takes another one of those deep, shaky breaths. “Because I want to be here for you, and instead I’m.” He waves vaguely at himself.

“You’re here.” Hunk hesitates another moment, then slides one hand out of his burrito and wiggles his fingers. “Give me that. ’N have the other, they’re perfect.”

“Okay,” Shiro says, softly, like he’s very touched by just that, and pops the cap effortlessly with metal fingers, and hands it over.

The sugary-fizzy guava on Hunk’s tongue is pretty much world-consuming, and he just sits and drinks, overcome. A day ago he’d been cuffed to the ceiling and whipped bloody, and yet there’s still the same soda in the world, and he wishes he could give Muira some, and—

“I guess,” Shiro starts again. “What I mean to say is…if there’s anything you need to talk about. If there’s anything you need to ask me.”

Hunk puts his bottle down, stunned. Shiro _never_ talks about that stuff, certainly not with him. Not that he doesn’t have a damn good idea _why_ at this point, but still. “Jesus, Shiro,” he breathes. “Everything? Except I don’t wanna have to put it in words? I dunno.”

“Fair.” Shiro takes a small sip, and his eyes widen.

“Good, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Shiro swallows, takes another sip. “It’s good.” He breathes in, breathes out, and a hint of his usual captain-aura creeps into his voice. “Do you need to take some time off?”

Hunk blinks. “But…Voltron?”

“I could reach out to the Coalition. Change alert levels to compensate for Voltron not being on one-hour standby. And we have the Atlas now.” Shiro’s hand flattens on the deck for a moment like it’s a touchstone.

Hunk thinks about that for a long moment. _Really_ thinks about it, about those weeks laid up in the hospital back on Earth, and feels something gnawing in his belly. “I think I’d go nuts,” he mutters. “Oh man, that’s weird. I used to daydream sometimes about retiring, you know.” He winces. “Right, you don’t know, you weren’t there. Please don’t be mad at me like Keith was.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Shiro says gently. “You all—you especially—were drafted. Fighting to defend the universe doesn’t mean anything if you can’t walk away from it.”

Hunk freezes for a moment, clutching his bottle, because of course. Of _course_ Shiro has strong opinions about that.

Then some corner of his brain catches up and he blurts, “There’s—one of the prisoners that broke out—” Wait, he’d been sure his plan had worked, but had they— “Did you find them, are they all right?”

“We did. Sam and Veronica have been getting them treatment, looking for places to go back to. All the needful things.”

Hunk reels with relief. “They’re safe?”

“They’re safe.” Shiro smiles, small and warm-you-down-to-your-toes, the kind usually reserved for Keith. “You made sure of that. You did something amazing that day, Hunk. Truly extraordinary.”

Hunk hears himself make some squeaky noise in the back of his throat. “I just…I couldn’t just lie there.”

Shiro’s bluetooth hand wafts in his direction, yearning. “But you—you _succeeded._ You pulled off a miracle.”

Hunk gulps air, feels his eyes prick, and scoots those few feet closer to hug him.

For a long moment, they just huddle in a mess of bottles and foil blanket and half-slung jacket. Shiro’s rangy and warm and squeezes him hard, and okay, he could get used to hugging him this much, even if the circumstances are twice-reheated shit. He swallows hard. “O-one of the others. Tysha. Did she…she seemed like she wanted to punch you a lot.”

Shiro stiffens, and Hunk un-hugs, suddenly worried. “We…spoke,” Shiro says carefully. “She’ll be all right, I think.”

At least he has his normal amount of limbs? Hunk chews his lip, nods.

“I…I still don’t remember everything,” Shiro says quietly. “But the things I’ve done…I wouldn’t blame you ifyou saw me differently.”

“ _No_ ,” Hunk croaks, strangled. “No.” He catches Shiro by both shoulders, the implant warm under his palm. “I mean, yes, I know stuff I didn’t know, it was only a day or two, I can only imagine how—how it gets into your— _damn_ it, Shiro, I don’t think less of you. The opposite. It’s the opposite.” Shiro’s eyes are very wide. “Mostly I don’t know how in hell you got back up and led Voltron after that.”

Shiro bows his head and makes that same squeaky noise in the back of his throat. “The same way you broke them out, probably.” His voice is very small. “The amnesia helped.”

Hunk bumps their foreheads together. “Seems legit.”

“That necklace,” Shiro murmurs. “Tysha said one of the prisoners died…”

Hunk screws his eyes shut against a prickle of heat. “I didn’t—I tried to save her—”

“I know you would have.”

Hunk lets go of one of Shiro’s shoulders to clutch the little stone. “She—she was a _kid_ , Shiro. She was _eight_. That bastard made us fight, and…and I didn’t, he…”

It feels like the words are building in his throat, rising like vomit, and then Shiro’s hands are on his shoulders in return. “Did he execute the loser?”

It’s quiet and tired, like he knows.

Of _course_ he knows.

“Yeah,” Hunk croaks, and then it all comes spilling out.

 

* * *

 

Much like vomiting, really, Hunk feels sort of better when it’s over. Even if he also feels like he’s been turned inside-out.

They’re slumped shoulder-to-shoulder against Yellow’s paw, mostly-finished gone-flat bottles abandoned. Foil blanket over both their backs, because _Shiro_ had started shaking once Hunk got to his stakes in the duel, and it came out that he’d remembered Ozen’s bad hobbies right there on the Atlas’ bridge during the firefight. “The second one. He re-engaged us, tried to mop us up when we couldn’t form Voltron.” Shiro’s voice is quiet, a little thin. “He said that if he didn’t get back in time, his men would kill you and the rest of his arena slaves.” His jaw tightens, along with his hand in Hunk’s. “There was…video.”

The razor whips. _Fuck_ —they really did see. “Yeah, he was excessive like that,” Hunk mutters.

“Keith and the others ran interference with the lions, but I needed to get to you. Nobody’d found his main base yet. So I jumped ship.”

Hunk stares at him. “Alone. In the middle of a firefight.”

“I…wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. But it worked out. I cut through to the arena, got there in time. And Voltron was able to track me.”

“Oh my god, _you’re_ where Keith got it.”

That brings a faint, fond smile to Shiro’s face, and he finally breathes out all the way. “I think he just came that way. ‘M probably a bad influence though.”

“Never, Shiro.” It’s Keith’s voice, quiet and echoing in the big bay, and both of them jolt. “Sorry—it’s just me. Can I come in?”

“Uh…” Hunk looks to Shiro, who nods. “Sure.”

Keith pads inside, still in uniform, but somehow looking smaller than usual. Small and disappointed. Hunk swallows. It—shouldn’t matter if he’s lost his respect. It shouldn’t. “What’s up?”

“I just need to…” Keith comes up to kneel in front of him, weight rocked back on his heels, hands a tangle in his lap. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but I wanted to say that I’m sorry. About the mission. If I hadn’t come in so recklessly…”

Hunk stares at him for a moment, bewildered. Then his brain catches up and he frowns. “We still would’ve tried to beat his ass, and he still would’ve had a fuck-off huge laser cannon that Pidge didn’t get a bead on. Jesus, Keith, don’t blame yourself for his bullshit.”

Keith picks his head up, more wide-eyed and sad than Hunk’s seen him in months. “But—”

Hunk makes some disgruntled noise, grabs him, and squishes him to his chest.

Keith squeaks and goes limp like a scruffed kitten.

“The mission itself was reckless,” Shiro says. “We overreached, tried to spread our forces too wide when we had too little intel. That’s on the whole command team.” Keith fumbles for Shiro’s hand, and now they’re all tangled. “No more Voltron-only missions like that.”

“Agreed,” Keith says into Hunk’s pajama-chest, fervent.

“Well, I’m the last person in the universe to argue with _that_ ,” Hunk says. Shiro’s warm against his side, and Keith’s slotted perfectly in his arms, and a number of things are _not_ okay and maybe won’t ever be again, but this is probably better than freaking out alone after all. “Sorry about…about all the blubbering. Earlier.”

Keith’s face comes up, stricken. “No,” says, almost pleading. “Don’t be.” He flattens a hand on Hunk’s shoulder, brows knitting as he searches his face. “Hunk. You’re still the bravest person I know.”

Hunk feels his eyes widen. “Oh,” he croaks, squeezing Keith a little tighter. “Good, ‘cause you’re gonna make me cry again.”

Shiro folds carefully over Hunk’s back, settling in only when Hunk relaxes into it, and the blanket’s still crumpled around them somehow, and there’s this strange watery feeling building in his chest that he can’t put his finger on. He’s probably not crying again? It’s not entirely a bad feeling, even though it kind of hurts?

Then he realizes, and whispers, “oh,” small and stunned.

He’s finally warm.


End file.
